GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES - online book

130 Fairy Stories Adapted & Arranged for young people

worse than all, fresh quantities of hay kept coming in at the door, till there was scarcely room to move. At last he could bear it no longer, and cried out, " No more hay, please—no more hay !"

Now the maid, who was milking the cow, no sooner heard some one speak, than she recognised the voice which had disturbed her in the night In great alarm, she screamed out, threw down her stool, upset the milk-pail, and ran to her master, exclaiming, " Oh, sir, the cow has been talking !"

"Nonsense, girl," replied the rector; however, he went himself to the stable to find out what was going on. No sooner had he set his foot within the door, than Little Thumb cried out, " No more hay; I don't want any more hay."

Then was the rector himself alarmed, and thought that the cow was possessed by an evil spirit, so he ordered it to be killed. The poor animal was slaughtered and cut up, and its stomach, in which Little Thumb lay hidden, thrown on the dung-hill. It gave him no little trouble to work his way out; but he had scarcely suc­ceeded in popping up his head, when a new misfortune presented itself. A hungry wolf rushed up, and seizing the cow's stomach, swallowed it at one gulp.

Little Thumb did not lose his courage; he called out to him from his uncomfortable lodgings, "Friend wolf, I know where you can get such a beautiful dinner."

"And where am I to find it ?" he asked.

" Oh, at a house not far from here. I will tell you the way to get in. You must creep through a large hole into the kitchen, and there you will find the best of everything in the way of eating and drinking, and take which you like." Then he described to the wolf his father's house.

The wolf did not need to be told twice, and in a very short lime had found his way into the kitchen, through the hole ; and a famous feast he made of the good things he found in the larder.

But after he had supped to his heart's content, he wanted to creep out by the same hole, but he had eaten so much that it was impossible to squeeze himself through. This was just what Little Thumb had expected, and he began to jump about inside the wolf and make such a disturbance and noise that the wolf said, "Will you be quiet ?—you will wake all the people in the house."